Business
B3
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2016 extrastory2000@gmail.com
Central banking at its most awesome
CHAMPION OF THE POOR. The Junior Chamber International Manila along with AY Foundation announces Fr. Leo Schmitt, SVD (center) as
the recipient of the 2016 Blessed Teresa of Calcutta Award for his remarkable efforts in alleviating the lives of the poor. Fr. Schmitt began the Samahang Bagong Buhay Foundation Inc., an organization that worked for the development of housing projects for informal settlers in various areas of Antipolo City. With him during the recent awards ceremony held at the Yuchengco Musuem of RCBC Plaza, Makati City are (from left) JCI Manila president Ramiro Villavicencio, 2016 BTCA Chairman Ramon Bagatsing Jr., JCI member Gio Valencia and AYF trustee Reynaldo Vea.
SBMA chief supports call to use Subic Port
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HE Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority said Monday it supports the recommendation of House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez to utilize the port in Central Luzon. SBMA chairman Martin Diño said in a statement the proposed plan was highly beneficial to the country’s economy because it would increase business activities in the northern regions of Luzon. “Efficient trading boosts business growth and where there are thriving businesses; there are job opportunities,” Diño said. He cited that over 30 million Filipinos would benefit from the proposed utilization plan, providing jobs to several regions in the country.
Taiwan seeking expanded relations By Othel V. Campos TAIWAN has called for increased cooperation with the Philippines during the 105th National Reception Day of the Republic of China (Taiwan) Monday. “I would like to point out that right now is the best and opportune timing to work together to enhance our bilateral relations. By broadening multifaceted cooperation, we will eventually create a mutually beneficial win-win situation” said Taiwan representative Gary Song-Huann Lin in his speech during the celebration held at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza Hotel in Manila City. He added that Taiwan’s ‘New Southbound Policy’ of President Tsai Ing-wen and the Philippines’ more inclusive policies under President Rodrigo Duterte complemented each other. Taiwan and the Philippines have mutually beneficial close relations. The bilateral cooperative ties are wide–ranging from trade, investment, industry, technology and science to agricultural, fishery, labor tourism, aviation, shipping, energy, and even weather forecasting. Taiwan in 2015 was the Philippines’ fifth largest trading partner, ninth export market and fourth import source. Total Taiwanese investments in the Philippines in 2015 jumped to P5.46 billion, up 83 percent from a year ago, making Taiwan the Philippines’ third fastest growing investment source. The Philippines, meanwhile, is Taiwan’s second-largest export partner among Asean countries at $7.45 billion, and the 11th largest trading partner of Taiwan, with bilateral trade amounting to $9.27 billion in 2015.
He said Central Luzon was among the fastest growing regions in the country where infrastructure projects were put in place and where investors were flocking in. “The roads leading to and from Central Luzon is in place, labor costs are attractive, utility prices are lower than other cities; it is a good place to do business,” he said. Diño cited an efficient port waiting in Subic Bay that could cater to businesses at the shortest turnaround time possible.
“The port in Subic can hold 600,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent unit) but it can also handle TEUs (forty-foot equivalent units),” he said. “Imagine, in just four hours your goods are already en route to their destination,” Diño added.
The SBMA chairman said doing business in Subic was like transacting in Manila because the travel time would be cut short and roads leading to destinations were more favorable for truckers. “You have the NLEx (North Luzon Expressway), SCTEx (Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway) and well paved diversion roads that assure on-time delivery of goods and services. And for businesses, time is a very important resource for investors,” Diño said. He said the SBMA was waiting for the approvals of the proposed infrastructure projects pitched by the agency to the National Economic and Development Authority to fully harness the potential of the region.
BAT backs smoking ban in public places By Gabrielle H. Binaday BRITISH American Tobacco Philippines on Monday expressed its support to the strict nationwide implementation of a smoking ban in public places that will be embodied in a proposed executive order. Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Ubial said President Rodrigo Duterte was set to sign this month the EO banning smoking in public places. “The no-smoking policy being implemented in Davao will also be enforced across the country,” said Ubial in an interview. Duterte imposed a smoking ban in public places in Davao City, where he was a long-time mayor. BAT chief executive officer
James Michael Lafferty BAT would have no issue with the implementation of such a ban. “Such bans are already being implemented throughout the country at varying degrees of enforcement, as already enshrined in Republic Act 9211, or the Tobacco Regulations Act of 2003. We don’t see any issue with the new administration pushing for a more uniform enforcement across all LGUs (local government units),” Lafferty said. RA 9211 prohibits smoking in public places such as schools and centers of youth activity; elevators and stairwells; locations in which fire hazards are present; within buildings and premises of public and private hospitals, health centers and similar insti-
tutions; and public conveyances and public facilities, including airport and ship terminals. Smoking and non-smoking areas will be designated in all other areas where non-smokers may be exposed. The Department of Health is also pushing for the amendment of RA 9211, which seeks to eliminate contentious tobacco control policies, particularly in the area of point-of-sale advertisements and designation of smoking areas. BAT said it would take responsible positions on health issues. “BAT has consistently demonstrated in the Philippines that we will be a responsible tobacco company that supports sensible regulations advocated by the government,” said Lafferty.
THE well-known American humorist paid tribute to central banking with these words: “The three greatest inventions of mankind are fire, the wheel and central banking.” If he wanted to be precise, the humorist should have said “good central banking.” And if he wanted to be even more precise than that, Will Rogers should have said “good central bank governors.” During the last three years the most powerful woman in the world has been, not the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (Christine Lagarde) or the Chancellor of Germany (Angela Merkel) or the head of the British Commonwealth of Nations (Queen Elizabeth II), but the economist who is the chairman of the US Fed (Federal Reserve Bank), which is America’s counterpart of central bank governor. Janet Yellen succeeded fellow-economist Ben Bernanke in 2013. In 2008, halfway through Bernanke’sterm, the US was struck by the worst downturn to hit the US economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Between them, Yellen, Bernanke and the boards that they headed put an end to an economic occurrence that drove tens of thousands of people to unemployment, financial delinquency and bankruptcy and brought suffering and misery to millions of Americans. And since the US is the principal driver of the world economy, the severe flu in America quickly translated into a bout of fullblown pneumonia for the world economy. Displaying enormous savvy, sharp judgment and steel-like guts, Ben Bernanke and his board steered the US economy slowly but surely back to stability and, eventually, to growth. Bernanke had a wide array of monetary tools, including changes in interest rates—the basic interest rate is called the Fed funds rate—and required reserves, open-market operations and special deposit requirements, America’s central bank undertook the tricky task of restoring order to financial and property sectors roiled by the scandal in the sub-prime housing mortgages market. The Bernanke Fed settled on two tools, namely, a zero Fed funds rate and open-market operations consisting of an announced program of scheduled Fed purchases of US government bonds. The first tool was intended to bring down the level of market interest rates; the second tool was intended to reinforce the first by increasing the availability of funds for corporate and personal lending by otherwise timorous financial institutions. The strategy of the Bernanke Fed was slow to take effect. Given the depth of the economic downturn, that was not surprising. But in the end the financial and capital markets realized that the Fed meant business and began to take advantage of the regime of the unprecedented monetary ease. Even so slowly the American economic ship began to turn around. Financial markets around the world were apprehensive that Bernanke would be followed into the Fed chairman’s office by an individual who would not be equal to the task. But in no time were their apprehensions allayed, for Bernanke’s successor, Janet Yellen, quickly showed herself to be possessed of the right stuff. Against the advice and opinions of many bankers and economists, and anxious that the Fed should not take its foot off the accelerator, chairman Yellen maintained the steady-as-you-go strategy of Ben Bernanke. Speculation in the world financial community about the Yellen-led Fed’s interest rate intentions has caused the Fed chairman’s name to be the name most often mentioned in wherever and whenever finance people meet. Another display of central banking chutzpah and savoirfaire was made early this year shortly after the announcement of the victory of the pro-exit side in the March 23 referendum of continued British membership in the European Union. Seeing the negative reactions of the financial markets to Brexit (British exit), Mark Carney, the non-British of the Bank of England, lost no time in announcing that Britain’s central bank would make available all the funds that the financial markets reasonably required—with an initial commitment of 35 billion pounds—to cope with the expected outward movements of funds. That Bank of England gesture quickly calmed the markets, and the steady slide of the pound soon came to a halt. The examples discussed above portray central banking at its very best. They constitute awesome displays of the finest in monetary management. Will Rogers was essentially right: good central banking is one of the man’s greatest inventions. E-mail: rudyromero777@yahoo.com
The quiet Yak DESPITE its name and impending release this week, there isn’t a whole lot being written or said about Ubuntu 16.10, otherwise known as Yakkety Yak. The latest upgrade to the popular Linux distribution is set to be released Oct. 13, and a final beta has been available for downloading since late last month, but the new release is hardly generating any interest. The lack of excitement can be traced to what Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has left out of this version—the long-promised new default interface, Unity 8, and a new graphics engine, Mir. For a while, both were supposed to make their debut in Yakkety Yak—but Canonical scrubbed the plan in May, making it the seventh release in a row that the two technologies were deemed not ready for prime time. Unity 8 was supposed to be the common interface that would be tie together desktop PCs, laptops, mobile phones and tablets running Ubuntu, and was built on the Mir graphics system—a major departure from the X Window system. At the Ubuntu Online Summit in May, Canonical boss Mark Shuttleworth said he would not make the same mistake of migrating everyone to a new interface (Unity 7, at the time) before they were ready for it, as they did with Ubuntu 11.04. “I have said publicly that I’d like the community to tell us that Unity 8 is ready to be the default Ubuntu experience,” Shuttleworth said during a Q&A at the summit. “I think I made a mistake, be-
cause I was so convinced in the convergence story, moving Unity 7 into position before it was ready in 11.04. So, lessons learned. And I think the right way to deal with that is to make a great Unity 8 desktop, use it ourselves, and then let people vote, essentially, and signal that this is what we want as the default Unity for Ubuntu.” Writing in TechRepublic, Jack Wallen said this was the right way to go. “Canonical is making the wise decision to mildly disappoint instead of categorically enrage,” he said. Although Unity 8 will not be the default interface in Yakkety Yak, it is included for testing purposes; anyone who wants to kick the tires on it can choose to try it from the log-in screen without installing any extra software. Be forewarned, though—there’s a good reason Unity 8 isn’t the default desktop environment. Scott Bouvier, writing in the OMG! Ubuntu! Website, puts it succinctly: “Let’s not lie: Unity 8 needs serious work.” “If Unity 8 is to have any hope of replacing Unity 7 as the default computing experience on millions of Ubuntu desktops worldwide it has to be better,” he wrote. “Fanboy hand-waving and over enthusiastic Google+ posts will not balm the sting of criticism—only raw code and bug report band aids can do that.” Ubuntu 16.10 will include updated packages, including Linux kernel 4.8, and the newest versions of Libre-
Office (5.2), GNOME applications, and the Nautilus file browser. “The most welcome improvements in the default applications come in the new Ubuntu Software app, which made its debut with this spring’s Ubuntu 16.04 release,” writes Scott Gilbertson in The Register. Anyone who has used the software manager in previous versions will appreciate the faster loading and listing of applications. The new Software manager also improves support for Snap packages, and will now track and install non-GUI applications, libraries and fonts and multimedia codecs alongside regular applications. Reviewers of the final beta release also note that the installation disk is considerably larger than it was on 16.04 (1.4GB). The increased size doesn’t come from the addition of more applications, but language packs that take up more space. Should 16.04 users upgrade to Yakkety Yak? Given that 16.04 is a a long-term support (LTS) version (it will be supported until 2021), it’s awfully tempting to save yourself the hassle of an OS upgrade and stick with what you’ve got—for now. Column archives and blog at: http://www.chinwong.com